Motorists continue to shun green cars

David McCowen

Unpopluar ... electric cars new to the market, including the Nissan Leaf (pictured), have failed to gain the interest of car buyers.

Australians appear reluctant to pay more for fuel efficient vehicles, despite hybrid and electric vehicles become more accessible.

More than 98 per cent of private new car buyers chose conventionally powered cars in 2012, with 96 per cent of fleet vehicle sales going to petrol, diesel or LPG fuelled vehicles.

The local new car market is home to three electric cars as well as 14 hybrid vehicles that have struggled to strike a chord with motorists.

Sales of hybrid vehicles were up more than 50 per cent last year, but only 13,919 hybrid cars and SUVs were delivered to customers in 2012.

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More than half of those sales went to Toyota’s Camry Hybrid, the first Australian-built car to combine petrol and electric power.

Hybrid cars were introduced 12 years ago, with models now ranging from tiny city cars to luxury sedans, people movers and SUVs.

They have proved more popular on corporate and government fleets than in the private buyer market, but even fleet managers have been reluctant to adopt green cars in large numbers.

Paul Scully is the national marketing and communications manager for LeasePlan, which organises corporate and government vehicles for around 1200 organisations.

Mr Scully said fears about battery deterioration and range problems were compounded by concerns that hybrid and electric cars would plummet in value after three or four years.

“Our figures and our fleet compilation certainly don’t show the speed in the growth of hybrids that you might have expected five years ago,” he said.

“The feedback is fairly consistent and fairly strong ... there is a lot of anxiety about residual value,”

But Matthew Callachor, Toyota Australia’s executive director sales and marketing, said hybrid cars were not a fringe choice.

“The growing popularity of hybrid cars shows they are now regarded as a mainstream choice for local motorists due to a combination of their performance and their excellent fuel economy," he said.

"In passenger cars, hybrid sales were up 61.1 per cent last year compared with growth of just less than one per cent for diesels."

Electric cars like the Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Holden Volt had a combined total of just 253 sales last year, when Australians bought more than 1.1 million new cars.

But Australia differs from countries like the US and UK in that we do not have strong subsidies for electric and hybrid cars.

Victoria has registration discounts of up to $100 for electric and hybrid cars, while registering those cars in NSW is up to $30 cheaper compared to conventional vehicles.

Those incentives pale into insignificance alongside a US$7500 ($7200) tax credit offered by the US Federal Government, and grants of up to £5000 ($7500) the UK provides for hybrid and electric cars.

Californians can have a further US$2500 back on the price of a US$35,200 Nissan Leaf. The golden state also offers reduced electricity rates, free parking, and the use of bus lanes for electric vehicle drivers.

The NSW Government will consider options to better green cars, but VicRoads says there are “no current proposals for a further discount”.

Leo Kerr drives an electric car and works to promote zero-emissions vehicles online.

He said Australian Governments needed to help car manufacturers to put electric cars on the road.

“There’s nothing to encourage people to drive an electric vehicle,” Mr Kerr said.

“We’re very much behind in this country.”

Mr Kerr said local pricing of electric cars was ridiculous and that “the Leaf should be no more than $35,000” in Australia, where it sells for $46,990 plus dealer and on-road costs.

Mark Taylor, Sydney branch secretary for the Australian Electric Vehicle Association, agreed that electric cars were poor value. He singled out Mitsubishi’s tiny i-Miev, which costs $48,880 and has struggled to find buyers.

“If you look at a i-MiEV, it’s not a lot of car really, it’s a little rice bubble that’s electric. They’re charging much more than it’s worth,” he said.

“[Electric cars] are a good idea but they haven’t got the appeal that our members want.”

Mitsubishi’s customer and brand management vice-president, Paul Unerkov, defended the i-MiEV’s price, which is higher than an entry-level diesel SUV from Audi or BMW.

“We probably couldn’t reduce the price much further than that,” he said.

‘‘For a better price tag it needs a better government subsidy not only from us but also from consumer point of view to try and make it more practical and to encourage more consumers to actually drive cars that are better for the environment.”

With Sam Hall

46 comments so far

Depends on your definition of green cars. The electric cars use coal to produce their electricity - at least in australia. Many hybrids use more fuel and perform more poorly than diesel equivalents in other cars. Cars that outperform their petrol versions in the same type of model and use 3/4 of the fuel are in huge demand as more people discover the benefits of diesel. Maybe the article should have read that feelgood cars are not selling well but cars that actually perform and are extremely fuel efficient are selling very well thank you.

Commenter

brain

Location

ardlethan

Date and time

January 28, 2013, 7:15AM

Green - you should have been at Summernats. At the recent Summernats event in early January 2013, there was a lot of talk amongst car enthusiasts about going to Electric Drive due to better low end torque = better burn outs. You watch, they will probably get green tyres so that it can do green smoke at future burnout comps.

There was even a display of two Electric Cars, Electric Dirt Bike and an Electric Go Kart at that Nats. What was interesting was that none of them were factory jobs. Three of them were done by ordinary people who had no automotive engineering or mechanic training. There was a Daihatsu Charade and a dirt bike that was converted using off the shelf parts which you can buy off the Internet. From 0-80km/h, the Charade could burn off a V8 Commodore due to plenty of torque of Electric Motors. It had around $12,000 of parts in it and was used as a daily driver. The dirt bike was a recreational & burnout machine and had around $1,100 worth of parts. The go kart used discarded starter motors that were modded and was used for drifting, but it had problems with mounts distorting due to the torque from the electric motors. Don't know much about the Moke.

This display was a huge crowd puller with queues of people wanting to talk to the people at the Electric display and they were taking heaps of photos.

If you're into burnouts, drifting and drag racing, Electric Drive is the way due to plenty of low end torque.

Commenter

///M Power

Location

Rev Head Land

Date and time

January 28, 2013, 3:30PM

Absolutely spot on brain. Green cars have made manufacturers produce a more efficient fossil fuel car and we are all the better for it. Consumers are a little scared of electric cars - where can you charge it, what will its resale value be etc.etc. Green cars are having the right effect on the market and will eventually take the market as prices drop and people get used to them.

Commenter

Pedro

Location

Randwick

Date and time

January 28, 2013, 5:28PM

A problem with diesel is that the human health effects of its exhaust are worse than conventional petrol. A lot of recent air pollution research and modelling has demonstrated that effects of the extra particulate matter that comes out of the tailpipe. For this reason alone a lot of european and north american city fleets of buses and trucks are switching back to petrol from diesel. Also, in regards to your comment about electricity - not if you get some form of green power - then the power has to come from a registered renewable source (maybe not that exact electricity, but the company has to create an amount equal to the amount you purchase in its production mix). I've been getting green power of one sort or another, across 3 cities, 7 properties, and 5 different electricity suppliers since I left uni 14 years ago. Most people who bother to buy an electric car will also pay a little more for their electricity to ensure a renewable source, even if it costs a bit more, for the same reason as buying the car (which also costs more for the car you get). They are also the kind of people who tend to know about their energy options, if they've gone to the effort of getting the car.

Commenter

I must say

Location

Date and time

January 28, 2013, 9:33PM

If I tick a box on my eletricity company application I can make a electric car zero emissions. How do you propose to do that with a petrol powered car?The "electric cars run on coal" argument is just an excuse.

Commenter

Mark

Location

Sydney

Date and time

January 29, 2013, 6:06AM

The electric cars use coal to produce their electricity

Hogwash !!!! Some of us at least have discovered PV systems.

Commenter

Yes Minister

Location

Woop Woop

Date and time

January 29, 2013, 6:06AM

The market rules! People buy cars for the purpose that suits them. They make their judgement based on an envelope of performance. The same car that does shopping trips has to carry the family to visit relatives, go to the beach, do the country trips, take the family on holiday (including overtaking a B-double while fully laden!) and suit the main driver's wishes in terms of performance, comfort, price and running costs.

For most people "Green" cars fail to meet their requirements and so they are by-passed in the showrooms.

We should not be bribed to buy these things. It is most inappropriate for Government to fling taxpayers dollars at people to bribe them to buy unsuitable vehicles. Equally there should be no special benefits for users of these vehicles. Why should they get priority parking? Drive in transit lanes?

In terms of ecological benefits they are diabolically poor as they need huge quantities of environmentally damaging lithium to make their batteries and their use of coal generated electricity is, when the full cycle is taken into account, woefully poor.

We would be far better off pursuing alternative sources of hydrocarbon fuel such as that generated from algae in brackish water (which gets its carbon from the atmosphere and does not divert food sources).

Commenter

MFL

Location

Date and time

January 28, 2013, 8:21AM

As Leo Kerr (an evangelist for electric vehicles) said: “There’s nothing to encourage people to drive an electric vehicle”. Well, yes there is, there is a huge tax on petrol (doubling the cost at the bowser), and no corresponding tax on electricity. And still we get these kinds of uptake figures. If electric cars are to be successful, they need to be cheaper to own and run than petrol cars, while offering comparable utility. They don't even get close despite the punitive taxation on the competing technology (petrol and diesel).

If electric vehicles are a good idea, they will come anyway. If they are not a good idea, governments should not encourage their use.

Commenter

weterpebb

Location

Sydney

Date and time

January 28, 2013, 9:41AM

In the USA, it is common for people to own three or four cars. They can do so, because cars are cheap, driveways are long ( outside the biggest cities ), and they can actually get a discount on registration and insurance for owning multiple cars for different purposes.For most people, an electric car will only "work" for them, if they have another car for different purposes, such as going to the country. Yet the government continues to insist that families should only have one car.

Commenter

enno

Location

sydney

Date and time

January 28, 2013, 10:37AM

This is a common mistake - electric cars are often powered by the owner's solar panels and/or green power. But even if they were powered solely with coal, they emit 27% less CO2. The reason is that the source to "tailpipe" efficiency of an EV is a lot better than a fossil fuel powered car - the conversion of electric energy ( plus electricity is not transported, unlike petrol/diesel ) to kinetic energy is more efficient.

As for the lithium argument - the lithium batteries used in EVs are already recycled by most manufacturers.

It is because of the above myths and misconceptions and the prices of these cars - which will come down over time. Another reason is range anxiety, which , with the Tesla Model S reaching ranges of 480km and fast battery recharging is going to be a thing of the past. I wish a few of these doomsayers would research a bit before parroting myths